18.02.2008
If you (like me) love literature, you definitely want to read
Jasper Fforde's novels, in
particular the series around literary detective Thursday Next. I haven't
enjoyed reading so much for a long time (thanks to
Jordi for the tip).
(Note: I'm going to do some reflections here, so there will be a few
inevitable spoilers. You may want to read the books first before reading
the rest of this post :-).
The Next novels take you on a crazy journey not unlike Douglas Adams'
Hitchhiker series, but Fforde's universe is more coherent and
less cynical, and his characters are carefully developed. Much of the
story has to do with English literature, so the fun is greatly enhanced if
you have actually read Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights,
Shakespeare's plays, and all the other English classics that feature in the
novels.
1) In Fforde's books, characters move easily to and from various
sorts of unreality: fictional worlds inside classical novels, the realm of
the nearly dead, one's dreams and memories. There is also timetravel; but it
looks almost conventional by comparison.
Unsurprisingly, in Fforde's world access to areas of unreality works
by suspending metaphysical
apartness. He gives an account of these areas so that we can be
part of, for example, the fictional world of a book - we can get in
there. As in timetravel stories, there are devices to achieve the
transition (BookPortals, TravelBooks), which are part of the
fictional contract. And of course some fictional devices ('backstories')
are introduced to make it more plausible to be located 'in' a book
such as Jane Eyre without being part of it in the sense of
belonging to the original narrative.
The areas of unreality share, as I have mentioned in my earlier post,
several relational frameworks with reality. They mostly have the
same spatiotemporal, causal, or social and communicative
structure. Therefore it is easy to imagine oneself playing,
as it were, a part in these areas. (I don't want to go into the literary
characteristics of timetravel stories here; I think I'll spare that for a
later post.)
With respect to areas of unreality, Fforde is very thorough. None
of them is inaccessible. His universe is one where reality is pervasive -
there are no areas metaphysically set apart, and therefore there is no
unreality. It's all reality. (Notice how nicely this result correlates
with the criterion for reality that I have given in my earlier post.)
2) The books are written from the first-person perspective, but the
protagonist whose perspective it is is not always fully master of the events.
Thursday Next is resourceful and has purpose, but she never quite
understands the fundamental workings of the complicated universe which
she inhabits. That capacity belongs to a string of other characters (most
of them in her family): her timetravelling-knight-errand father, her even
more chrono-prodiguous son Friday, her ingenious-inventor uncle Mycroft,
and so on. Economic and political might and sinister resources are
available to her antagonists, and again they are usually slightly
above comprehension (think of Aornis Hades and her memory-manipulating
abilities). This is a clever literary device: we see this world full of
fascinating possibilities, but we see it through the eyes of someone
whose understanding of them is somewhat incomplete. This makes it easier
to tell stories about them without the need for full explanation.
(It's not a new literary device, of course. Just think of the
Sherlock Holmes stories, for example. Part of the appearance of outstanding
genius is achieved by narrating it from the point of view of a normal person,
Dr. Watson.)
3) Perhaps the most charming aspect of Fforde's books is that
they portray a world where literature is decidedly more important than in
ours. It's so important that there is a dedicated special operations squad
occupied with 'literary crime', i.e. stealing and faking of literary works.
(It's not as important as timetravel, however.)
And the author plays with other aspects of the superposition of fiction
and reality. The very letters of the printed text (i.e. of your
physical copy of the book) transform sometimes in accordance with the events
in the story. When there is an outbreak of a misspelling virus, the text
suddenly stargs to dysplay mispelings, increasing vnd dicreasing in intensity
and frekuency wit de exposure to the viirus the ckaractrs have, untill
finally the virus is contained. In another instance, the ancient St. Zvlks
talks in Old English Letters. But the effect is economically used, so that
it doesn't wear thin even in the fourth sequel.
